The Monsters We Made
by BeyondTheHorizonIsHope
Summary: Pietro and Wanda weren't Hydra's only successful subjects. Tess Monroe struggles to come to terms with what has happened while her newfound powers threaten to destroy everything around her. Meanwhile, the Avengers are divided over trusting a woman with so many unknowns to her name. Pre-AoU.


Recently saw Age of Ultron (well, twice really, because once is NEVER enough), and I felt inspired to get cracking at fanfiction again. I thought to give this a try, see what everyone thinks. I would really appreciate some feedback on this in terms of characters and the overall flow. It helps out a lot! This story is set pre-AoU but will continue into it, with flashbacks to previous movies.

 **I own nothing.**

* * *

 **Chapter One  
** Missing in Action

"I'm just saying he should give them a chance," Clint Barton huffed as he let loose an arrow. It found its intended target, of course, with a light thud. Without his eye, or life for that matter, the Hydra gunner stumbled back and slumped over the trench wall, effectively silencing the .50 Cal that had been keeping Natasha Romanoff in cover.

Free from the cascade of incoming rounds, his fellow Avenger ran forward and swiftly dealt with the remaining soldiers before they could lay a hand on the trigger.

Nocking another arrow, Clint checked the landscape one more time, watching their flank in case the enemy decided to actually get smart on them.

They were deep in the Black Forest of Germany, heading for some old World War Two outpost that even the SSR had managed to miss back in the day. It was not until decades later that SHIELD stumbled across it, an abandoned, crumbling building filled to the brim with secrets and Nazi paraphernalia. Though Clint couldn't help but wonder if that was accurate now. After all, Hydra had been operating behind the scenes since the beginning. Maybe that meant here too.

The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"And _I'm_ saying we don't need to subject our good Captain to that CGI spewfest." Tony Stark's voice buzzed in his ear.

Clint rolled his eyes. "Same old excuses. You need to get some new material."

"So does George Lucas."

A red and gold blur passed over head, zapping a few straggling soldiers in the distance. With a rather large smirk, Clint took aim.

Inside the Mark XLIII, Tony felt something bounce off his helmet.

"Uh…did you just shoot me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Clint ran up to the trench, covering Natasha as she pushed further down the field. He casually picked off soldiers who thought they would actually have the drop on the master assassin. "We both know a measly mortal such as myself could never compete with your intellectualness, especially against those moves you showed the Mandarin."

"Alright, Girl on Fire, now you're just asking for it."

Twenty yards ahead, Natasha reloaded her dual pistols behind a tree.

"Boys, play nice." A hand reached out to grab her. They never did learn. The owner received an electrified fist to their jaw. "Steve is a grown man. He can choose what movies he wants to watch."

"He can choose what clothes he wears too, and, frankly, it doesn't inspire confidence."

"You guys _are_ aware I can hear you."

On the opposite side of their target, Steve Rogers and Thor fought off a squad of Hydra's best with relative ease. Their presence had been meant to draw out the heavy fire and leave little resistance for the others. With two tanks down and out thanks to Mjolnir, and another well on the retreat, but incapable of escaping Tony's ion thrusters, the battle already felt very much over.

Thor could not help but feel a little despair at the thought. Not because he wished the fight to continue, no, those days of warmongering were long past, but if Loki's staff were truly within, Hydra would not have surrendered it so easily. No, this would be another cold trail.

He slammed Mjolnir on the ground and watched the remaining forces lose their footing. One soldier attempted to get up, only to get a face full of Steve's shield.

"What movies do Barton and Stark refer to?" Thor asked, spinning the hammer in his grip. He could use a distraction.

Steve sighed, replacing the shield on his back. "Star Wars."

"Oh, I know these films. Darcy had me watch them once. She said I had not lived until I had."

Together, Thor and Steve made their way to the base. It was decrepit, perhaps a castle that had long been forgotten. The upper floors were mostly destroyed, leaving little room for occupancy. Most likely there were several levels below ground, as had been the case on the last five bases they had captured. Aside from the troops and vehicles that had come pouring out of the weather worn courtyard, it gave no outward appearance of being active.

"And?"

"My life certainly felt no different after doing so."

"He's referring to what you thought of the prequels," Tony joined in, landing behind the duo with a small thud.

Thor paused. "The story was not as compelling and there was a woman who looked very much like Jane. I found it…unnerving."

"That's a tally in my column. Suck it, Barton."

Steve rolled his eyes as he listened to Clint and Tony argue back and forth a little longer. He thought about telling the group that he had already seen all the Star Wars films and that he found them all equally intriguing, mostly because he still could not wrap his mind around how far movies had come, but being the butt end of a joke was not how he wanted to end the mission…again.

Tony blasted the door into the courtyard open, allowing Steve and Thor to enter first with their weapons ready, but it was unnecessary. Natasha had her legs wrapped around the last Hydra goon as she choked him with one of her escrima sticks. Meanwhile, Clint was picking up stray arrows and nudging the occasional body to ensure they were staying down.

"Seems a bit quiet, don't you think?" Natasha noted as she dropped the body.

Steve nodded. There were maybe ten guards in the courtyard, another thirty outside, maybe forty. It qualified as the least defended base they had been to yet, but with the team closing in on Hydra's territory, shouldn't it have been the opposite?

"Perhaps we caught them unprepared," Thor stated.

Clint tossed the arrows back in his quiver. "More likely it's a trap."

Neither option felt right to Steve. Hydra was rarely unprepared, especially now that they had made themselves known to the world again. And given that they were losing bases left and right, he could not imagine them sacrificing another in a trap. At the very least, they would not have made it so blatantly obvious.

Tony shifted. "JARVIS, life signs?"

 _None, sir._

"Like I said, a trap." Clint fingered the knife he kept hidden in his boot, mentally daring someone to try to catch him off guard.

Natasha shook her head, walking forward to the only door left. It was plain wood, not even reinforced. "It's not a trap. My source insisted there's something important here. Top secret. Strucker and his officers only."

"Have you ever considered that maybe they, oh, I don't know, lied?" Tony asked.

Clint mumbled something along the lines of 'shouldn't have said that.' Thor and Steve stepped out of the line of fire just as Natasha leveled a glare on Tony. Iron Man, despite not moving, appeared to shrink before the team's eyes.

"Are you questioning the effectiveness of my interrogation, Stark?"

Tony gulped.

"…no?"

"Good answer." With that, Natasha kicked down the door and strode inside.

It was a circular room, the walls, ceiling, and floor made of concrete. There were no windows, only vents, and a single light shining down on the large Hydra symbol in the center. A few cots were scattered about, a couple tables, but other than that, there was nothing to indicate that the area was of any importance.

"I do not understand," Thor said as he sifted through some paperwork on one of the desks. "If your source claims this place to be of great import, then why leave so few to protect it?"

"The greater the force, the higher the chance of discovery," Steve answered as he circled the room, looking for any irregularities.

"Whatever they're hiding, they wanted to keep it that way," Clint continued.

"If they're hiding anything," Tony mumbled, making sure he was facing away from Natasha. "JARVIS, what can you tell me?"

On his screen, a 3D blueprint materialized.

 _The compound has one level approximately 250 feet below the surface, accessible only by an elevator shaft. Preliminary scans show minimal technology._

"Access to the elevator?"

To answer his question, something hissed at the center of the room. The team watched as the Hydra symbol broke apart, revealing a rising elevator car. As soon as it stopped, the door opened with the characteristic 'ding.'

Tony's face-mask popped open.

"Not a trap, huh?"

* * *

Bruce was not pacing. He was simply walking back and forth in a confined space. Which may or may not appear to be pacing.

Alright, _maybe_ he was pacing.

He could not help it, though. While the team had not indicated that they needed his help, they also had not checked in for a long time. And as much as he wanted to look for them, he was not sure how good the Big Guy was at search and rescue. If one thing went wrong, someone could end up hurt, or worse.

And so he waited.

And paced.

Another twenty minutes passed before the radio finally crackled to life.

"Away Team to Quinjet. You doing okay in there, Bruce?"

Natasha.

She sounded calm, but the woman could crack a smile under gunfire. Still, she was alive. That meant something.

He hit the response switch. "The Big Guy is still napping if that's what you're asking."

"It's not, but I'll take it." There was a pause. "We need you."

His stomach dropped. While control was easier for him now, it was still not a definite thing, and every time he was asked to unleash the Hulk, he had to wonder if he would wake up where he wanted to be. The Lullaby, Natasha's friendly way of saying she had found a way to psychologically trick the Big Guy, was bound to fail sometime. And, more than likely, it would come at the cost of her life.

"It's not a Code Green, Bruce."

Now he was imagining things.

"It…it's not?"

"No. This requires a…light touch."

After navigating the forest-turned-battlefield and enduring the painstakingly long elevator ride to the lower level of the base (what a wonderful place for the Big Guy _not_ to come out), Bruce found himself standing in a quite peculiar spot. After the Helicarrier, he thought that phrase would no longer apply. Guess not.

It was a large, bleached white room, almost completely empty. In that respect, it was very similar to the upper floor, except this space was not devoid of life. At the far end was a single bed, surrounded by medical equipment and the remaining members of the team. Lying on it was a woman, unconscious and completely oblivious to the world.

"Remember when I said something big was here?"

"She's it?" Bruce asked, walking forward.

"Apparently."

Upon closer inspection, the woman was more than a little worse for wear. She was thin, skin sagging on the bones, signs of malnutrition. Her dark locks were limp and lifeless. And the rest of her body…well, Hydra had clearly been up to something.

The first obvious detail was on her right eye. On the edge was a crescent shaped piece of metal, formed along her eye socket, both above and below, digging into the skin in a way that suggested there was far more beneath the surface.

Another was her hands. They were clenched into fists, and where the skin thinned at the knuckles, more metal appeared. But these had clearly burst through the surface, rather than being purposely left exposed. Dried blood caked her hands and the sheets below them.

The rest of her body was covered, but Bruce had an undoubtedly accurate suspicion that there was far more evidence of tampering to be found.

"I thought JARVIS didn't detect life signs," Steve murmured, as if he would wake the woman if he were any louder. They had seen evidence of human experimentation at the last few bases they had captured, but no signs of success, just files full of treatments and a whole lot of blood. It was starting to feel like the war all over again.

Bruce grabbed one of the IVs hooked into her arm, before immediately detaching it. "Tetrodotoxine B."

"The serum you created?" Steve asked, garnering the attention of everyone. "Fury used it once. Faked his death."

"Meaning she barely has any signs to identify," Bruce continued, eyes flitting over the several screens surrounding them. He pushed a few buttons and read some clearly German statistics. "Whoever put her here didn't want her waking anytime soon. It'll take days just to get her out of the coma."

"And how long has she been here?" Thor asked, his anger thinly veiled. As much as he loved humanity, what they did to their fellows was truly disturbing at times.

"A couple months at least, judging by the-" Bruce had lifted her arm, hoping to get a closer look at the knuckles, but the weight of it gave him pause. It was too heavy, even if she had not been emaciated. Slowly, he turned the arm over, observing the elbow, then her shoulder. He attempted to turn her on her side, and was again surprised by how much she actually weighed.

The hospital gown she was dressed in did not leave much to the imagination. Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce spotted Steve starting to avert his gaze, but his attention was quickly drawn to the woman again. His eyes grew wide, stunned, surprised, even concerned.

"What did they do to her?" he asked, gaze now set firmly on the doctor.

Bruce lowered the woman back down gently, watching her face. Her eyes darted slightly underneath their lids, but otherwise there was nothing from her.

"She has, uh…" He cleared his throat, looking up at the others. "There's, um…there's more of the metallic substance on her back, running all the way up to her neck. As far as I can tell…her entire spinal column's been replaced. I don't know why it's been left exposed, but it's undoubtedly causing her a great deal of pain."

There were several sighs and hands running through hair. Clint, Bruce noted, had walked away from the group and was staring at one of the white walls like it was about to hit him. Natasha was watching him, her grip on the bedrail white-knuckled. Tony was staring at the floor, his armor left upstairs on sentry mode; Thor looked to the ceiling. Steve was still watching him, waiting for an explanation he could not give.

"She weighs far too much for someone her size. It's some sort of technological integration, massive transplantation," he paused, looking around again. He hated to be the guy to deliver this sort of news. "We're looking at something far more extensive than what we're seeing on the surface."

There was a loud 'thunk' at the other end of the room. Clint had actually punched the wall. It left blood.

Natasha silently wandered over to him and whispered something in his ear, but it was not enough. He shrugged her off and stepped away, breath coming out in furious huffs. Clint was normally a calm guy. Even in the worst of situations, he was the one joking around, attempting to get the others to smile. No one had seen him this angry in a long time, not since Loki.

"I knew I should have looked for her. I should have…" Clint's voice drifted off as his gaze met this others. "She…she's one of us, or at least she was. Her name's Tess Monroe, a Level 7 Agent from SHIELD. She's been missing since Hydra tore us apart from the inside."

"And whose side was she on when the ball dropped?" Tony asked, eying the woman like she was going to jump up and bite him.

Natasha shook her head.

"We have no idea."

"Great, so it's a trust game." Tony clapped his hands together. "Who wants to offer their back first?"

* * *

Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!


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